


A New Day

by DraconisWinters



Series: Within the Shadows [8]
Category: LinkedUniverse - Fandom, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, LinkedUniverse, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-14 18:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18481558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DraconisWinters/pseuds/DraconisWinters
Summary: The first thing that Shadow felt was the warmth. It was soft, comforting, things Shadow hadn’t felt in a long time. Shadow moved slightly to curl up more in the warmth, but uponmoving, his torso flared up with pain and a small whimper escaped him. He tried to straighten himself back out, but that hurt too. Damn. Everything hurt.





	A New Day

The first thing that Shadow felt was the warmth. It was soft, comforting, things Shadow hadn’t felt in a long time. Shadow moved slightly to curl up more in the warmth, but upon   
moving, his torso flared up with pain and a small whimper escaped him. He tried to straighten himself back out, but that hurt too. Damn. Everything hurt.

“I think that was Shadow!”

Wait…was that Red? Shadow cracked his eyes open and saw leaves of a tree above him. Hm, strange. The leaves were bright green and healthy like he was in the light world-

“Looking for me?”

A scream escaped Shadow as something was stabbed through his stomach. Looking down, Shadow saw it was a light arrow sticking out of his stomach.

The mirror fell from his hands.

Shadow fell to his knees.

Callous laughed and pulled the mirror off the ground, “I’ll be taking this.” He then turned around and disappeared into the woods, “Goodbye, shadow.”

Shadow sat up frantically ignoring the excoriating pain from his body. His entire form trembled and Shadow hands were wrapped around his legs, nails digging into his skin, but that didn’t matter because Callous had his mirror. Callous had his mirror! Shadow’s breathing sped up and his panic increased. They had his mirror. They could kill him at any moment, whenever they wanted to! Or they could make him suffer slowly until he eventually begged for the release of death which they would refuse to give-!

“-dow! Shadow look at me!”

Shadow blinked a couple of times, when did Red get in front of him? 

“Just calm down,” Red smiled encouragingly, “Just look at me okay, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

No. No, it wasn’t okay! Red was wrong. He didn’t understand. He didn’t understand! 

“You’re safe, I promise you are safe,” Red tried to sooth. 

No. No, he wasn’t. He’d never be safe with them alive!

“Hey, hey, remember, Vio gave you the fake one,” Red said, seeing Shadow wasn’t responding.

The fake one? 

The fake mirror. He did remember. It wasn’t his. Callous just took some random mirror with no value. Shadow’s breathing started to calm down and Red’s smile grew larger, “See, it’s okay. It’s all okay.” Shadow’s body was still shaking, but he nodded. Eventually Shadow could breathe easily and Red laughed, “See, I knew you could do it.”

After calming down Shadow looked around a bit more. He realized they had moved him into the shade of the trees and out of the sun. He could see the other heroes milling about the camp, doing their various tasks. Beside Shadow himself though was four blankets all neatly folded. Each was a different color, blue, green, purple, and…brown? Shadow looked down at the blanket that he had been using and saw it was red. Before Shadow could protest Red wagged his finger and said, 

“Nope, it’s yours for now. Mines the biggest and the softest and it is what you need. You also get to sleep with Trooper and Princess Fluffles till you get better,” Red added.  
What? Shadow looked back down and saw a stuffed cucco tucked inside the blanket with him, alongside a sheep. Red, was willing to let him borrow his blanket and his stuffed animals, Shadow blushed. 

“It was my idea to let you borrow Trooper and after a bit of convincing Blue decided to let you borrow Princess Fluffles as well,” Red laughed and Shadow’s eyes widened in shock. Red nodded and continued lowering his voice down to a whisper, “Yeah, Trooper the cucco is mine. Don’t let Blue know I told you. We normally just pretend they both belong to me.”

Shadow nodded, genuine smile breaking out onto his face for the first time in a long time. 

“Well, now that you’re awake, I can give you this back,” Red smiled pulling out Shadow’s mirror and holding it out for him to take. Shadow tenderly reached up to take his mirror. It had only been a few days, but many things had happened. So many things had gone wrong. Shadow’s inhaled sharply seeing a small hairline crack at the top of the mirror and he numbly reaches up with his left hand to touch the teeth gashes on his neck.

Red sees him reaching and grabs his hand to stop him, “Sky tried really hard to clean those marks and wrap them and we wouldn’t want to mess it up.” Sky? Red, could see the questioning look in Shadow’s eyes and looked over the camp before locating a specific Link. “That one!” Shadow followed Red and saw a man similar to Stygian. That was the man who defended him against…what was his name? Warriors! Yeah, that one, Conqueror’s counterpart. The one with the blue scarf.

“I guess I can point out the others as well,” Red said, “That one over there by the fire pit is Wild.” Shadow looked at him skeptically, it was like Noble, but…dirty. “Wind and Warriors are close by and Legend is next to them.” Wind, the tiny counterpart to Tempest…probably similar to the little demon. Although, Shadow remember ‘Legend’ was the one who had saved him or rather his eyes from Eternal’s blade. Maybe he wasn’t so bad. “Time over, more behind Wild so you probably can’t see him, he’s the one missing as eye.” Oh…the Eternal’s Light. Shadow shuddered, he’d avoid that one. “Over there is Twilight.” Shadow’s heart skipped a beat. The wolf. Stay far away form that one. “And then there’s Hyrule, he was the one to take the arrow out of you and wrap your torso, he’s over there.” Shadow followed Red’s point and his heart stopped. Callous. But…it wasn’t Callous.  
Red noticed Shadow’s discomfort and asked, “Hey, are you okay? Do you want me to call Hyrule over?” Shadow frantically shook his head and Red held up his hands, “Okay, okay, I won’t calm down. I’ll make sure he stays away from you if that’s what you’d like.” Shadow nodded eagerly.

“Okay then,” Red responded before sitting down next to Shadow and scooting closer to him. He throws his arm over Shadow’s shoulders and pulls him close in some sort of half-hug. “The full hug will come when your stomach is a bit better,” Red promised and Shadow smiled. “I’m glad you’re okay. The others are to, they’re just not here yet. But you better be ready to see Blue cry, ‘cause he was devastated.”

Shadow nodded, leaning into Red. 

Yeah, he hadn’t felt warm in a long time. 

…

Acidic wasn’t stupid, despite what most people would think.

He noticed the small differences throughout the other Darks after fighting their Lights. And while Acidic can’t say he was proud of how his fight turned out, he knew that Callous had ‘won’ his battle, if you call wining stabbing someone in the back.

So why was it that the man had been in such a pissy mood the past few hours?

Well, whatever the reason, Acidic messed with the broken bracelet on his wrist absentmindedly, he had a long sleepless night to figure it out.


End file.
